Listen to Podcast | Teochew: How Do You Say “Slower” & “Faster”

Podcast Transcript | Teochew: How Do You Say “Slower” & “Faster”

Hello everyone, welcome back to our Teochew – How Do You Say Podcast on LearnDialect.sg. If you have been listening to our podcast, 你有学着底个无? 有底个爱我呾加一次无? 你明白我呾底个无? Was I speaking too fast or too slow for your liking? How do you ask someone to talk slower or faster in Teochew then? My name is Eugene and let’s find out how to do that today!

Teochew people use the word “慢” to mean “slow”. Hence, to emphasize the need to slow down, you can repeat the word twice. For example, “慢慢呾” means “speak slower”, “慢慢行” means “walk slower” and “慢慢食” means “eat slower”. On the contrary, if you need someone to be faster, Teochews use the words “猛猛”. As such “猛猛呾” means to speak faster, “猛猛行” means to walk faster and “猛猛食” means to eat faster.

Now, here’s a fun fact for you. Did you know that while Teochews, Hokkiens and Cantonese people in Singapore use similar Chinese characters to represent “slower”, they have different ways of expressing “faster”? If you are keen to find out how Hokkiens and Cantonese people in Singapore express “faster”, do check out our Hokkien and Cantonese podcasts too!

So in today’s podcast, we have learnt “慢” means slow, “猛” means fast while “慢慢” means slower and “猛猛” means faster. Try using and practising these words in your daily Teochew conversations. My name is Eugene from LearnDialect.sg and look forward to seeing you next week!

Our Philosophy for Learning Teochew in Singapore

While we include formal romanization for Teochew words, we are advocates of easy learning. Hence we encourage you to form your own phonics so that you make an association with these Teochew words quickly. To illustrate, the formal romanization of “Teochew” is “diêziu“. However, in our “Can You Teach Me” podcast transcript, you’ll find that we use “teo chew”, which we think relates to us better. That said, you may use other romanization (e.g “dio chew”, “diojiu“, etc), as long as it helps you to make sense of what you hear.

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